A HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY BY W.K.C.GUTHRIE F.BA. Master of Downing College and Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy in che University of Cambridge VOLUME II THE PRESOCRATIC TRADITION FROM PARMENIDES TO DEMOCRITUS CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS £969PUBLISHED BY THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMHRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London, N.W.1 Americun Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 1oozz West African Office: P.O, Box 33, Ibadan, Nigeria © CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1965 Standard Book Number: 521 05160 6 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 62-52735 First published 1965 Reprinted 1969 First printed in Great Britain at the University Printing House, Cambridge Reprinted in Great Britain by Alden & Mowbray Led. at the Alden Press, OxfordCONTENTS Preface Note on the Sources List of Abbreviations I THe Eveatics A. Parmenides (x) Date and life (2) Writings (3) A central problem (4) The prologue (5) Two ways of inquiry: one true, the other impossible (6) The true way and the false (7) The only true way: the marks of ‘what is’ page xiii xvii xix Anmw ew @) It is eternal, neither coming into being nor perishing (4) It is continuous and indivisible (c) It is motionless, and lies complete within peirata 34 (d) Recapitulation: coming-into-being, loco- motion and alteration are names without content (e) It is ‘like a round ball’ (8) The false way of what seems to mortals (9) Cosmogony and cosmology (10) Theory of knowledge: the soul (11) Being and seeming Appendix: the opposites in Parmenides B. Zeno (1) Date and life (z) Writings and method vit 39 4B 57 7 80 80 81Contents (3) History of interpretation page 83 Bibliographical note 85 (4) General purpose 87 (5) Plurality 88 (©) Motion: the paradoxes or G) Place » 9 (8) Sensation: the millet seed 97 (9) Zeno and Parmenides 97 (10) Conclusion 100 Nore on certain Chinese paradoxes roo C. Melissus 301 (2) Introductory 10 (2) The nature of reality 102 (@ Reality has the characteristics stated by Parmenides and others consistent with them 103 (8) Reality is infinite 106 (© Reality has no body n° (d)_ Reality feels no pain m3 (3) Relation to other philosophers ny Il lontans anp ELeavics: Tae Rise anb Fan OF MonisM 9 M1 Empepocies 322 A. Introduction 132 B. Date and life 128 C. Personality: healer and wonder-worker 13a D. Writings 134 E. Escape from Parmenides: the four roots 138 Additional notes: (t) the divine names of the elements, (2) the immutable elements and fr. 26.2 144 F. Structure of matter: the theory of mixture and its relation to atomism viiiContents G. Love and Strife H. Cansation in Empedocles: chance, necessity and natute 1, The cosmic cycle First stage: the Sphere of Love Second stage: the advance of Strife Third stage: Strife triumphant Fourth stage: the advance of Love Conclusion Additional note: the interpretation of fr. 35 J. Cosmogony and cosmology (1) Cosmogony (2) Shape of the cosmos (3) The sun and the two hemispheres (4) The moon (5) The earth (6) The sea K. The formation of living creatures L. The structure of animate nature: physiology (1) The ratio of the mixture (2) Medicine and physiology: reproduction (3) Respiration (4) Sleep and death (5) Madness M. Cognition, thought, sensation (1) All cognition is of like by like (2) Pores and effluences (including excursus on magnetism) G) Vision (4) Hearing (5) Smell (6) Taste and touch (7) Pleasure and pain (8) Conclusion ix page 12 159 167 168 It 174 178 180 183 185 185 190 191 197 198 199 200 241 2i1 216 220 226 227 228 228 231 234 238 240 24 242 242Contents N. The Purifications page 244 (2) Introduction 244 (2) The opening of the poem 246 (3) The Galden Age of Love 248 (4) The sin of bloodshed: reincarnation 249 (5) The fallen spirits , 251 (6) The way to salvation 256 (7) The gods 257 (8) The nature and destiny of the ‘soul’ 263 IV ANAXKAGORAS 166 (1) Date and life 266 (2) Writings 269 (3) The problem of becoming 271 (4) Mind 272 (5) Theory of matter 279 (6) The initial state: cosmogony 294 (7) Cosmology and astronomy 304 (8) Earth and sea 310 (9) Meteorology BEE (x0) One world or more? 313 (11) Origin and nature of living things 315 (12) Sensation 378 (13) Theory of knowledge 319 (14) Conclusion 320 Additional notes: (1) chronology of Anaxagoras’s life, (2) Euripides and Anaxagoras, (3) the words Syoropeptis, Spatopepsrx 322 Appendix: Selected passages on Anaxagoras’s theory of matter 327 V ARCHELAUS 339 Vi PHILOSOPHY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE FirtH CENnTuRY 345 Appendix: Some minor figures of the period (Hippon, Cratylus, Clidemus, Idaeus, Oenopides) 354 xVill Contents VII DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA PIBZe 362 (1) Life and writings 362 (2) The fundamental thesis: air as arché 364 (3) Air is intelligent and divine 368 (4) Physical theories: cosmogony and cosmology, meteorology, magnetism 370 (5) Life, thought, sensation 373 (6) Physiology 378 (7) Conclusion 379 THE ATOMISTS OF THE FirTH CENTURY 382 A. Leucippus 383 B. Democritus 386 C. The atomic theory 389 (1) Fundamentals 389 (2) General nature of atoms 492 (3) Motion and its cause 396 (4) Nature of the original motion: the question of weight 400 (5) Innumerable worlds: cosmogony 404 (6) The four elements 413 (7) Causality in atomism: necessity and chance 414 (8) The heavenly bodies; the earth; other natural phenomena 419 (9) Time 427 (10) Soul, life and death 430 Additional note: Democritus ‘On the Next World’ 436 (a1) Sensation 438 Additional note: the number of the senses in Democritus 449 (12) Thought 450 (13) Theory of knowledge 454 (14) Biology, physiology, medicine 465 (15) Man and the cosmos: the origin of life 47t xiContents (16) Culture, language and the arts POge 473 (17) Religion and superstition (18) Logic and mathematics (19) Ethical and political thought (20) Conclusion. Appendix: Indivisibiliry and the atoms Bibliography Indexes 1 Index of passages quoted or referred to IL General Index TIT Index of Greck words The device on the cover is from a coin of Clayomenae, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, of Roman Imperial date. It shows the philosopher holding a globe, recalling perhaps the saying attributed to him that the study of the heavens and the whole universe is what makes life worth while (see p. 269 n. 2). xii 478 483 489 497 $93 508 sir 523 537 554PREFACE The phrase ‘ Presocratic tradition’ is chosen for the title of this volume, rather than ‘Presocratic philosophers’, in acknowledgment of the fact that not all those included are Presocratic in the literal sense. (The main purpose of chapter v1 is to bring home this point.) We shall continue to follow a line or family of philosophers who were interested in the same things and could meet on common ground to fight their intellectual battles, each trying to correct or refine on the views of the others on the same subject. Many of them were known in antiquity as the physical or natural philosophers, and 1 considered using this description in the title; but natural philosophy can hardly be stretched to cover the True Way of Parmenides or the paradoxes of Zeno, and their common interest can best be described as an investigation into the nature of reality and its relation to sensible phenomena. Man was not excluded from their surveys, but in both his individual and his social aspects was treated rather as an appendage to evolutionary theories of cosmogony. So far as modern terms are applicable, they dealt in physical and social anthropology rather than in ethics or politics. Others meanwhile were making man the centre of their study, and with his cosmic setting as background only, were laying the foundations of European moral and political theory. Since the two types of thinker were contemporaneous, and acquainted with each others’ work, there could be no impenetrable barriers between them, and so we find Democritus, a physikos if ever there was one, also writing on ethical and political matters, though his expounders (perhaps wisely) concentrated on the atomic theory of the real world as his main achieve- ment, Conversely the humanists made full use of current scientific theories as a basis for their teaching on the namre and behaviour of man. Yet on the whole they pursued fundamentally different aims, the “Presocratics’ seeking the advancement of knowledge for its own sake, and the Sophists and Socrates trying in different ways to discover and pursue the best life. italian philosophers like the Pythagoreans and Empedocles also, it is true, preached a way of life, but it was one which xiii